Rebuttals Welcome

In the lates series of "points" in The Point Magazine comes this: http://www.thepointmag.com/?point=53.

operaSHOP photos are up!

Photos are up from Opera Cabal's brand new operaSHOP! Check out our Facebook page for the full reel ...

All photos related to Opera Cabal c/o the excellent Lara Kastner.

Twyla Strikes Again

Who is this woman, anyway? Check out the new Twyla Bell in the University of Chicago's THE POINT: A Journal of Ideas.

Me, Pseudonymously

A few years ago a couple friends of friends started a journal at the University of Chicago called The Point (it being a Hyde Park institution, the reference is to the beloved Point, a sun-soaked piece of land that extends into Lake Michigan from 55th street on the South Side). While most aspirants to the intellectual mag category, including such inimitables as Harper's and The New Yorker, rise and fall like dust mites in the wash cycle, The Point caught my attention. The articles aren't just clever and intelligent. They're topical, they're funny and they have a real point of view. The majority of its writers (and all of its founders) come from the University of Chicago's Committee on Social Thought, a name that continues to wow me simply on account of its impenetrability (what on earth is a committee? do they meet in a basement?) and whose adherents are without a doubt the smartest and most interesting people I've met at the U of C (with the possible exception of the R&L community in the Div school).

While it seems a little backa$$wards to invent a pseudonym (for the purposes of not revealing one's identity) and then to completely blow cover by blogging about it ... I wanted to share my own, little contribution to The Point's newest initiative, Pointing. Oh, wait. That's wrong. Pointers? No, anyway, I forget. Just read this.

City Opera: Off-Roading It

I don't care what anyone says. George Steel is made out of smart. Check out his New Deal.

Book of Abraham - Caroline Shaw, Majel Connery, Elliot Cole

From rehearsals for The Book of Abraham, a chamber pop song cycle I've been working on with Caroline Shaw & Elliot Cole, my two new favorite people, first-year composers in the Princeton composition department.

This work in progress was presented as part of a "Music + Theater Symposium" at Princeton last Friday, June 17 in the Whitman College Class of 1970 Theater. Here are a few excerpts from a recent rehearsal.


"You Are Smiling," written by Caroline Shaw (seated, Red Flyer), and performed by Majel Connery.




"The Speech of Nothing."




Elliot Cole's dance break:




And Caroline's final, beautiful solo:

Evan Curtis

I don't know a lot about stop animation. Which is a nice way of saying I literally know nothing about stop animation. But I know astonishing good art when I see it.

Any of you who have been coming to the Hyde Park Salons for a time may remember a showing of Evan Curtis's The Story of Scrivener and His Aislyn from the summer of 2009.

This kid is going places. Check it out.